Sep 30 2013

We didn't have a baptism last week like we had hoped--the investigator didn't meet with us the entire week so we dropped his date. We had hoped to push back his date anyways, but since there was no opportunity to meet and discuss it with him, we will have to set it aside for now. Nevertheless, our other baptismal date is progressing steadily, although he still hasn't come to church since he works on Sundays. We will discuss that with him more this coming week.

It is a mid-term break right now in Australia, both for University students and younger students. Hopefully this means that we will have more opportunities to meet with investigators... a lot of them are planning trips to places outside of Brisbane, however. We shall see.

There isn't really anything special that happened this week, just normal things. The big event of the week was that Saturday night was the end ("Grand finale," if you will) of the Annual "Brisbane festival," which lasts for three weeks in September and consists of a carnival-type thing going at south bank and regular light shows and water shows and so forth. The final event is called "River of Fire" where at a few points along Brisbane river (Southbank, Kangaroo Point cliffs, and Story Bridge being the ones I am aware of) there are big fireworks shows. Many of our investigators went (and invited us... we declined). The fireworks show at the KP cliffs was, of course, right in front of the Temple. They closed down the road there (River Terrace, where our ward gets its name) for pedestrian traffic and spectators.

Not long before the show was a cool miracle. We were GQing in the city, and I talked to a guy from Thailand. He was a Christian, which surprised me (Thailand is mostly Buddhist). He showed great interest in coming to church with us and meeting with missionaries. The miracle, however, was that at that very instance, the elders from Brisbane Ward walked by and said hello -- and the only missionary from Thailand in the mission (out of 200 or so missionaries) was one of them, and started talking to the guy in Thai. Now, you have to understand, in my 8 or 9 months of serving in the city, and being on Queen St nearly every day, I can recall only one time where the missionaries from Brisbane ward came to queen street. That those missionaries came that very day, that very hour, that very minute that I talked to that man (We only chatted for about 5 minutes, I'm sure), is certainly a miracle. He came to church the very next day, and we taught him afterwards.

That's all for the week. Take care!

Elder J. Colton Ladd